


Fracture (The Dig Another Hole to Bleed Remix)

by cm (mumblemutter)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Character Death, M/M, PTSD, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 22:52:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott and Charles share a cup of tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fracture (The Dig Another Hole to Bleed Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wallhaditcoming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallhaditcoming/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Rampage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/463613) by [wallhaditcoming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallhaditcoming/pseuds/wallhaditcoming). 



_15:42._

He's having tea with Professor Charles Xavier, humanitarian, pacifist, certified genius, and yet somehow fucking stupid, at least when it comes to the people he chooses to associate with. Or person.

Scott hates tea.

And yet Xavier goes, "Would you like some tea, Agent Summers? I feel like some afternoon tea."

Afternoon's for a hasty lunch at wherever's convenient, followed by the blackest coffee he can find. Afternoon's not for tea.

Xavier went to Oxford, now he thinks he's a Brit. It happens.

The tea's surprisingly good. "The first cup of proper tea I had," Xavier says, "I was eighteen, my first semester at Oxford, and I was as miserable as a person could be. It was cold, just that horrible dreary grey kind of cold. I dropped into this small cafe, determined to wallow in my misery, and found myself sipping a perfectly steeped cup of tea. It was divine."

Xavier's looking at him with some expectation, and as Scott takes a sip, it's almost as if he can taste the memory, as if the sun unexpectedly came out on a dark winter's day.

He blinks.

Xavier smiles. "More tea, Agent Summers?"

"Sure, why not."

 

_14:54._

"Honestly, I require no protection," Xavier says, when Scott comes knocking on his door. "Agent - ah," He waits expectantly, but as if he already knows Scott's name.

"Summers," Scott replies, giving him the terse Federal Agent smile. "My name's Scott Summers, Professor Xavier. We need to talk."

Xavier looks exactly like he does in the photos. Except with more clothes, more composure, more distance between him and the man the papers call Magneto, and what Scott calls the case that will kill him. If not sooner, then later.

"Nice place," Scott says, as he enters the foyer and a silent butler comes to take his coat, folding back into the shadows as quickly as he had appeared. They say you can tell a man's wealth by how unobtrusive and yet ever present his help is.

"It's -" Faint displeasure crosses Xavier's face. "You can take your sunglasses off, Agent Summers."

"No, I'm fine. I'm looking for Magneto - don't suppose you know where he is, do you, Professor?"

Xavier goes very still.

"Why," he says, after a good long while, "would you think I'd know where Erik is?"

 

_16:05._

Erik Lehnsherr: serial killer.

Mother murdered in front of him by stepfather; tortured for years afterwards.

It's almost textbook: Intelligent, highly organized, deeply obsessive, severely twisted.

"And yet, people have gone through far worse trauma. Not everyone ends up dissecting human beings. So what's the difference between Erik and," Xavier pauses. "Someone like you."

"I've only ever killed someone in self-defense," Scott says.

And now he's six years old, and his foster mom's screaming at him for something he can't remember doing. She picks him up by the scruff of his shirt, tosses him against a door. A bone snaps, but there's no pain until later.

There's never any pain until the shock wears off.

"You should finish your tea," Xavier says, and he sounds sympathetic.

Scott grabs the table for support, fights nausea, fights dizziness, fights the urge to fall apart in front of this asshole. "I think I'm done with tea," he says, and pushes the cup away. It almost tips over, this delicate piece of china, but Xavier catches it before a drop spills.

"Take off your sunglasses, Agent Summers. Scott," Xavier says, and it's not exactly a request.

Scott takes off his sunglasses.

Xavier gives the expected response to the scar tissue, the deep web of angry ridges around his eyes. "It's a miracle you didn't go blind."

"No such thing as miracles, Professor. Only luck."

"You're an atheist then."

The same foster mother, dragging him to church every Sunday in his finest: "You have to pray for forgiveness, Scott. There's something wrong with you. Something wrong with us."

The scent of old wood and candles and the taste of the communion wafer under his tongue.

Years later, he would diagnose her as a paranoid schizophrenic, guilty of nothing more than a chemical imbalance that no-one cared to treat her for. No one cared, period.

It wasn't her fault.

In the hospital - bandages around his eyes while the doctors and nurses crowded around and discussed whether he would ever see again - he only knew that she was the one to blame.

Scott blinks again.

"We all must have faith in something, Agent Summers."

"Justice," Scott says. "That's what I have faith in. Justice. How many more people does he have to kill before you stop protecting him?"

 

_16:30._

Fifty-three. More than four dozen, less than five.

How do you kill fifty-three people, just like that. Scott's a behaviorist, he understands what drives murderers, tries to understand each individual motivation, and yet at the same time he doesn't.

"Don't you, though?" McTaggert asked once. "You get close enough to them, you start to see things their way. You especially, Scott. You're so -"

Unnervingly good.

To catch a killer you must think like one.

It wasn't that at all, though. He didn't bother correcting her, but: swaddled under bandages, terrified he would never be able to see again (he hadn't appreciated that simple gift of sight before: television and night lights and being able to anticipate when the next blow was coming), he'd decided somehow that he would survive, even without his sight. So he'd centered himself, and started to listen.

People say a lot without speaking, if you just listen carefully enough.

Fifty-three.

"I assure you, Agent Summers, protective custody will not be necessary."

"Oh, but I kinda think it is."

"You're making a mistake."

"Won't be the first time," Scott says, grim. "Don't worry, Professor. I'll make sure that we supply you with all the tea you can handle."

 

_16:17._

When he was a rookie agent in the BAU, first case he caught, he managed to identify the unsub just from the way he spoke when they called him into the interview. They teach you a lot, in the academy. They teach you not to trust what you see. But Scott already knew that: what you can't see, the spaces in between, that's where the truth lies.

Scent and sound and touch and taste.

It tastes like metal, in Charles Xavier's home..

A homeless man called out to him once, as he was bringing a suspect in for questioning, "God kills more people in a day than any man can in his lifetime. When you gonna arrest him, huh?"

Scott stopped, said, "Tell me where he is, sir. And I will."

Magneto murdered fifty-three people. Scott sees the bodies in his head, piled up high and bloody. Hears their bones shattering, their blood going drip drip drip and pooling on the ground. A river of blood, rushing towards him. "How can you sleep with a man like that?"

"It's complicated," Xavier says.

"Your affair with a serial killer is a Facebook status?"

"I'm afraid it's none of your business, Agent Summers."

"Of course it's my business. Serial killer groupies aren't that rare, but they're mostly not guys like you."

Xavier winces. "Why do I feel I've just been flattered and insulted at the same time."

"You should feel insulted." Scott sighs. It's not wise to alienate the one man who can lead you to the person you've been chasing for the past few years. "I apologize. It's been a trying day."

"Apology accepted."

 

_17:50._

Fifty-three turns to fifty-four.

Magneto says: "I'll make you bleed until you give me back what's mine."

Scott spreads the crime scene photos across the table, hears Xavier's sharp intake of breath, the shuffle of him stepping away.

"Moira MacTaggert. Thirty-three years old, Federal Agent. She liked fine wine, the works of Vonnegut, cute videos of puppies. Her cat will miss her a lot, I feel. Her husband even more. Her friends -" his voice cracks.

Xavier's breathing has gone quiet, steady. "Please put these away, you've made your point."

"Have I? I don't think it's made any kind of impact whatsoever."

"You don't understand, Agent Summers."

What do you know about love?

Scott loved a woman once. She pulled off his sunglasses, the day they met. Told him to close his eyes, and kissed each one.

She was only ever afraid of herself.

He asked her to marry him, and she said yes. Just two people, falling in love and building a life together, like billions of people before them and surely billions after.

You meet someone, and you fall in love.

Like everyone: nothing else truly matters.

"I understand perfectly, Professor Xavier. You make your choices, you live with the consequences. That's how it goes."

Xavier puts his hand on Scott's arm, and Scott almost flinches away. "You should let me go home, Scott. Please."

 

_01:20._

He dozes off on a couch, dreams of two men whispering in the dark, telling each other love stories. Singing each other love songs.

One of them says: Wherever you go, I'll follow. They won't take you away from me.

The other one says: Look what our love has created. Just look.

Yes, the other one says, with pride.

Twenty-seven bodies, twenty-seven deaths. Twenty-seven grieving families, friends, lovers.

Jean said, the day they were married, "You won't ever have to be alone again, Scott."

She was wrong, but that wasn't her fault. She wasn't to know.

He dozes off on a couch, dreams of his dead wife, his dead partner, his dead foster mother who killed herself after the voices got too loud. Dreams of their cold arms reaching out to him, their blue-tinged mouths forming words that he can't understand, can't hear.

"How many bodies before you let him go," Magneto said. "I have all the time in the world, and this city is filled with bodies. How many, before you give up? They mean nothing, do you understand?"

Twenty-five.

Twenty-six.

Twenty-seven.

He dozes off on a couch, dreams of Jean holding his face in her hands, and finally he can hear what she's saying.

 

_16:08._

"I met Erik Lehnsherr when we were both seventeen," Charles Xavier says, over a cup of rapidly cooling tea. "We fell in love."


End file.
